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One of Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd’s favorite lines is, though paraphrased here, that a scandal or event which has the most potential to seriously damage a political figure is one which plays into an already preconceived type. Chris Christie’s “bridgegate” scandal, in which he was accused of punishing the constituents of a political adversary over a trivial matter, played into the type of him as a bully. The Clintons were wounded when the press was barred from conducting unapproved interviews at a recent Clinton Global Initiative gathering, and were even escorted in and out of bathroom stalls in...

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is considering carrying out limited attacks in Syria that don't drag U.S. President Barack Obama to an embarrassing situation, along with several U.S. security bodies holding meetings since weeks to figure out a solution to the rising crisis in Aleppo amid potential U.S. attacks against the Syrian regime. Officials in the Pentagon and the White House told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that these airstrikes will not be disclosed and the U.S. won't claim them publicly. Some analysts expressed concerns over the mounting tension between Russia and the U.S. as this might drift the Syrian war and spur...

The Russian government is ratcheting up warnings – on Twitter – to the U.S. government not to interfere with its military operations in Syria, even suggesting American aircraft could be targeted by its “air defense systems.” In a provocative tweet Wednesday, the Russian embassy in Washington posted a side-by side photo of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and the Russian S-300 missile system. With the military apparatus pointed toward the image of Earnest, a caption says Russia wants the system because they “never really know what kind of assistance terrorists might get.” The tweet says Russia will take “every...

The Obama administration official most likely in line to become the next U.S. envoy to the Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL) has falsely presented himself as an official U.S. ambassador by the administration for the last five months, according to documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Brett McGurk, a deputy special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition who serves under General John Allen, was temporarily appointed by the administration as an ambassador on Oct. 18, 2014. He was conferred this rank through a little-known legal loophole that allows the administration to...

The following are excerpts from the televised confessions of Muayed Al-Nasseri, who commanded Saddam Hussein's "the Army of Muhammad" throughout 2004. The confessions were aired by the Iraqi TV channel that operated from the UAE, Al-Fayhaa TV, on January 14, 2005. Interrogator: What is your name? Muayed Al-Nasseri: Colonel Muayed Yassin 'Aziz 'Abd Al-Razaq Al-Nasseri, commander of the Army of Muhammad, one of the resistance factions in Iraq. The Army of Muhammad was founded by Saddam Hussein after the fall of the regime, on April 9, 2003. At first, Yasser Al-Shab'awi was put in charge, until his captured in July...

Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's. According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the situation...

While the media is busy focusing on the troubling story of the two American soldiers detained at Guantanamo Bay for alleged espionage, both of whom had Syrian connections, another Syria story has passed them by. The names of Ahmad al Halabi, an American of Syrian descent, and Captain James Yee, a convert to Islam who spent four years in Damascus before returning to active service, are now well known. But the name of Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian journalist and human rights activist that was detained last week by French police in Paris, will most probably stay anonymous.   Nayouf?s only...

A senior figure from a Syrian rebel group with links to al Qaida was allowed into the United States for a brief visit, raising questions about how much the Obama administration will compromise in the search for partners in the conflict. Labib al Nahhas, foreign affairs director for the Islamist fighting group Ahrar al Sham, spent a few days in Washington in December, according to four people with direct knowledge of the trip and who spoke on condition of anonymity. His previously undisclosed visit is a delicate matter for both sides – the conservative Salafist insurgents risk their credibility with...

In an exclusive interview, Chuck Hagel said the Obama administration micromanaged the Pentagon, stabbed him in the back on the way out -- and still has no strategy for fixing Syria. Jet-lagged from a long overseas trip, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had just sat down with his wife for a quiet dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in northern Virginia when his phone rang. It was the White House on the line. President Barack Obama wanted to speak with him. It was Aug. 30, 2013, and the U.S. military was poised for war. Obama had publicly warned Syrian strongman...

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

Istanbul, Turkey (AP) - Syria handed over 22 suspects to Turkey on Sunday in connection with four deadly suicide bombings in Istanbul, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, all Turks, reportedly fled the country after the attacks, which targeted two synagogues in near-simultaneous bombings Nov. 15 and the British consulate and a British bank in twin attacks five days later. A total of 61 people were killed. Citing a statement from paramilitary police, Anatolia said the suspects included Hilmi Tuglaoglu, a close associate of Azat Ekinci, a central suspect in the blasts. News reports have named Ekinci as...

ROME — Imagine a five-star general, under assault, with no weapons of defense — except faith. Think of an Old Testament prophet living today, describing the evil destroying his community — but few listen. That general or prophet is the fierce and noble leader of the Syriac Catholic Church of Antioch, Patriarch Ignatius Youssef III Younan, age 71, whose Church comprises some 200,000 souls worldwide. snip According to the patriarch, fundamental errors in Syria came from Western politicians insisting that democracy can be exported, when it can’t; from Western media describing an “Arab Spring” style opposition movement and the existence...

President Obama announced Friday that he was replacing retired Marine Gen. John Allen with lawyer and diplomat Brett McGurk as his special envoy for Iraq and Syria with a wide-ranging portfolio that includes holding together a coalition against ISIS. Allen, who reportedly had clashed with the military over the now-defunct $500 million effort to create an army of Syrian volunteers, was departing after 13 months as special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, another name for the terrorist group.

The terrorist who slit the throat of 85-year-old priest Fr. Jacques Hamel today in Normandy, France had previously been arrested on terrorism charges and was was sentenced to house arrest with an electronic monitor. He spent a year in prison after being arrested in Turkey attempting to reach Syria and join the Islamic State. He was granted unsupervised release periods from his parent's house between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The attack occurred during the church's 9 a.m. Mass.The church attacked on Tuesday morning was reportedly on an ISIS list of potential targets discovered in April 2015....

Embattled Muslim aide to leave Pentagon job Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says WorldNetDaily February 11, 2008In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned. Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block...

The State Department announced Wednesday that it has added two people to the federal list of designated terrorists, one of whom was once detained at Guantanamo Bay military prison. Ayrat Nasimovich Vakhitov, one of the newly added jihadists, was a former detainee at Guantanamo for less than two years from June 2002 until February 2004 before being turned over to Russian officials in his home country. Turkish authorities recently arrested Vahkitov in connection with the June 29 suicide bombings at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport that killed 42 people. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. and Turkish authorities...

Google in 2012 sought to help insurgents overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to State Department emails receiving fresh scrutiny this week. Messages between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's team and one of the company's executives detailed the plan for Google to get involved in the region. "Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool ... that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from," Jared Cohen, the head of what was then the company's "Google Ideas" division, wrote in a July 2012...

More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war. The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and...

The Orlando gunman who killed at least 50 and wounded many more, claimed to be loyal to a number of loyalist groups who are on opposing sides in the battlefield including Hezbollah and ISIS, US newspaper the Los Angeles Times reported. Omar Mateen called 911 to say he was attacking the LGBT nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, swearing allegiance with ISIS. The FBI's Director James Comey told the newspaper that since 2013 Mateen is known to have made a series elaborate claims linking his relatives to the Sunni terror network Al-Qaeda, while also claiming to have been a...

Homeland Insecurity: The FBI arrest of a North Carolina jihadist brings to five the number of ISIS-tied Muslim Americans captured. It's time the president took the terror group's anti-U.S. rants more seriously. The influence that this vicious successor to al-Qaida in Iraq is exerting inside our own borders is clearly growing. Obama must do more to take out its leaders abroad while increasing scrutiny inside our Muslim community to ferret out recruits. Last week, the FBI arrested Donald Ray Morgan on AK-47 and other weapons charges as the North Carolina native tried to re-enter the U.S. from Lebanon, where agents...